Antigua Torre Windsor

The Antigua Torre Windsor was a 106-meter-tall (348-foot) office building in the AZCA business district north of central Madrid. Built between 1973 and 1979 to designs by the architecture firm Alas Casariego, the high-rise ranked among Spain's twenty tallest buildings in 2005 and was the eleventh-tallest in Madrid. On February 12, 2005, a devastating fire broke out on the 21st floor and quickly spread throughout the building, which was partly vacant. The extreme temperatures caused the upper and outer parts of the structure to collapse, bringing down the steel framework of the facade and the reinforced concrete floors above the 17th floor. The inner concrete core and the lower floors, however, remained standing. Because the building was at serious risk of collapse after this worst fire in the city's history, it ultimately had to be demolished.